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Sebatian Silva’s Nasty Baby

I’m a little late on the train, but I just saw Sebastian Silva’sNasty Baby. And my mind is just spinning with thoughts and emotions. I’ll try to get them out in a structured way.

The movie is about two gay partners (Sebastian Silva and Tunde Adebimpe) who are trying have a baby via their best friend (Kristen Wiig). Can I just make a quick observation? Two actresses who were in Orange Is The New Black were in this film…Constance Shulman and Marsha StephanieBlake. It was beautiful. That’s all.

It played out like an Instagram filter and added to the indie experience. And I will say it did look different than his other films (Magic Magic and Crystal Fairy). It felt more personal and rather than playing like a film, it played out like an experience, (such as Nasty Baby, the exhibit). But it was an experience I enjoyed.

It was a bit of a roller coaster, but a roller coaster I was willing to ride for an hour and a half…Yeah, I’ll stop with the cheese. If you know director/writer Sebastian Silva, then you know he has a specific vision for his films. They don’t cater to everyone, hell, I’m not even sure I fully understand all of them, but he knows how to keep it real. And he stays true to his roots of thriller/horror. This was depicted in the ending. (I’m not going to get too deep into the movie but I will discuss the ending). This movie took a sinister turn real fast when Silva’s character Freddy ends up having a bad day and the neighborhood nutcase provokes him by calling him a slew of homophobic slurs, and at this point Freddy’s had it. The nutcase, Bishop, throws a rock at him and Freddy slugs him and Bishop goes down, hitting his head on the concrete. He bleeds, Freddy freaks out then, out of options in fear of being deported and becoming a new Dad, he panics and ends Bishops misery… That’s the end in a nutshell. And more than anything it made me realize that it’s a lot easier to accidentally commit a murder and appear guilty than you’d think, which sounds pretty twisted, but I think Silva wanted to portray a part of that in his film.

Sebastian’s films may appear scatterbrained but stick with him because he tends to tell stories in a beautiful unique manner. This movie has such an extreme tonal shift, it deals with 3 subjects condensed in one movie: having a baby, Bishop, and Freddy’s artistic job, creating Nasty Baby. I will credit Silva in that his films feel very raw and pure. It really is like watching an experience and being captivated for 100 minutes.

Also, the reason why this review is all over the place is because it’s supposed to represent Sebastian Silva’s style of film…I guess.